Lately, I’ve been feeling this deep desire to just say what I think and show up as I am. I keep waiting for the sky to fall down but it hasn’t. I’ve had a few gut-punch moments, which as a highly sensitive person do affect me more than I’d like. But, you know, this is what I signed up for. I know that. To feel it all and still find the joy.
I’m in the middle of a major life and business review. Letting go of quite a bit and calling in what is in alignment now. It’s just time to get really clear. My partner Stacy let go of her business in July to fully commit to our work together. I feel shifts coming, which will bring an even deeper approach to the earth as a balm for the soul.
This week also marked the five year anniversary of defending my doctoral dissertation at McMaster University. This academic ritual was one of the most important days of my life.
Even then, I imbued the day with a personal ceremony and found a strength within that still remains.
Re-reading it made me so nostalgic for how I used to write and so grateful to know I still remain on the edges not saying what is expected of me.
I wrote in the Preface:
“This is a story of hope and despair, authenticity and tourism, memory and nostalgia, and loss, change and growth. It is a story of a different kind of aesthetic (where the beautiful and the ugly, the gorgeous and the grotesque meet)…
This story matters because people everywhere struggle to find their places, to imagine and make their place in the world. They struggle against each other when there might be other options.”
What would it be like to find other options to the struggles we’re facing now in all of our various places and communities?
I was reminded of all that I love about cultural anthropology this week, and how inspired I used to be when sitting with the messy complexities of cultural expression. It feels good for that story in my life to shift into something beautiful.
There is so much healing in truly knitting what seem like conflicting parts of yourself together.
And in sharing your unexpected stories from the edges!
Love and Blessings from the Edges